a brave face (hiding the need for comfort)
by My5tic-Lali
Summary: Five people without someone to turn to for comfort, who learned to stand on their own or fake it because they (can't, won't, shouldn't) need someone else/Five kids who (don't) need anyone else: Ling, Winry, Ed, Al, and Mei


Ling was taught from a young age that he could not cry too loudly at night. The first few times, Ling was given a short telling-off by the governess. After that, however, it escalated to no breakfast if someone heard him. Then, lines. Finally, word somehow got to his mother, and she took hold of him with a firm hand and said if she ever heard he'd shown weakness again, she would go back to the emperor and produce another, stronger heir.

Ling stopped letting his nightmares show after that.

Of course, Fu knew about them. He usually had the night watch on the young Prince, but at least Fu never told the governess in the morning. Lan Fan, too, when she was appointed his guard, found out.

But neither of their presences made the dreams of assassinations go away. If anything, having them there made it worse, because he rarely died in the dreams anymore; it was always one of his bodyguards instead.

He can't turn to them for comfort—they would see him as weak, too weak to rule. He can't turn to the teachers who drill knowledge and caution and ambition into him day in and day out. He can't turn to the two people who should've been his parents but were instead his disciplinarian and his unreachable emperor.

So Ling learns to stare the nightmares in the face and not flinch, to control his breathing when he wakes so no one came running, learns to push aside his tired muscles and move on to the next drill when asked, to push aside his throbbing head and study the next law when he finishes the first.

He has no one to turn to for solace, so Ling toughens himself until he doesn't need any.

/

Winry loved her grandmother and her neighbors, she did, but somehow their presences did not make up for the lack of occupants in her parents' room. Did not ease the fear that ate at her every day in which she did not get a letter. Did not make it any easier to eat dinner without her father's joking and her mother's laugh to accompany the good food. Did not provide enough support when the news came that they were dead.

Granny, as comforting as her presence was and as wonderful as her endless knowledge was, was not the kind of person Winry felt comfortable going to when she had cried for so long that she couldn't do more than lie on the floor and wish for everything to go away. Ed and Al, as nice as they were and as sympathetic as Al could be, were not the ones she wanted to hug her goodnight and wipe the tearstains from her cheeks.

No one could replace her parents and their bear hugs and their soft way of explaining medical procedures and their love. And no one could make their loss feel any less life-ruining.

She's lost count of the nights she's stayed awake, curled on her bed, watching the moonlight illuminate the picture she had of them on her nightstand, crying soft tears to her pillow and committing their faces to memory. She's lost count of the mornings where she just couldn't make herself get up and face the world that didn't have her parents in it.

But eventually, those nights grew less frequent. Eventually, those mornings were further and further spread apart. Granny pulled Winry up and into the family business as soon as Winry could go into the room her parents used to work without sobbing. Ed and Al never stopped popping in at odd times, demanding food and eventually, automail fix-ups. Winry got over it.

She did.

It's just habit for her, now, when the boys come back with more scrapes than someone who fell into a briar patch and make her worry, when more and more foreboding news makes its way to Resembool, when she finds herself missing her parents once again, to shove it down deep inside and turn back to her work, the tears held inside by nothing more than self-control. She does not ask for comfort. She will not ask for comfort.

The people she wants to support her are gone. So Winry supports herself and supports the Elrics because they can't support themselves either.

/

Ed became the man of the house at a very young age. He had never been the crybaby type anyway, but when his dad was gone, it became his job to not cry and to help his mother. Ed took this very seriously, and it became even more important to him when their mother died.

Al cried during the funeral, but Ed wouldn't let himself. He was the man of the house. He was the older brother.

Now, without their mother, he had to stand by himself.

He had to make the decisions himself.

So he did.

Ed held his head high and strode forward and forgot about consequences and pushed aside those who wanted to comfort him "through his loss", like he needed the help; but he'd already found a solution, he didn't need support.

Oh, how wrong he was.

That plan fails.

But even then, even after that disastrous transmutation, Ed refuses help. He'll recover from the automail in less time than anybody else, he'll fix his brother, they'll go back to being independent. He'll go and become a dog of the military so he can fix what he broke, and nothing will stop him. Ed won't be held back by shame and guilt and fear and sentimentality any longer.

He holds his head high and puts on his red coat and goes out into the world with his clanking brother by his side, and pretends he doesn't want someone to help him figure out what to do. The last time he tried to plan all by himself, his brother ended up stuck in a suit of armor. Indecision and regret whisper in his ears that this'll turn out badly too.

But Ed won't ask for help.

He can't. His job is to lead the way, to be the unflappable older brother (okay, maybe _independent_ older brother is better, he does tend to lose the whole _unflappable_ bit whenever yet another townsperson calls him short). Ed doesn't need support. There's no one to ask for comfort, anyway. He can't burden the Rockwells anymore. He can't show Al that he's as weak as Al must think him.

Ed holds his head high and stomps down the path he'd chosen. The only people he trusts enough to comfort him, he won't go to, so eventually, the nightmares and whispers of failure leave him alone. (Mostly.)

/

Al had never felt like a strong person. He knew he was too compassionate sometimes, that he followed his brother around instead of making his own path, that he was always the first of the two brothers to cry when he fell down. But if anything, this made him feel that he had to try to be strong even harder than Ed did—Ed, who was naturally tenacious, who had never quivered at the shadows in the night or the thunder and instead comforted Al whenever he got scared.

It was easy to let Ed be the strong one, to let Ed have his ideas and lead the both of them, even when Al's own insecurities said "This might not be a good idea," even when the night became dark and he _missed_ his mother like nothing else, even when that longing turned into a desperate plan and that plan backfired.

So after that night, Al decides he can't just let Ed be the strong one anymore. As he waits for Ed to waken, as he watches his brother's fitful sleep, as he sees the color come back into his face, Al knows he can't let Ed be the only one to shoulder the weight of life.

Al spends his lonely knights reading—every book he can get his hands on. He spends the afternoons when Ed recovers from surgery after surgery training—every form Teacher had taught them. He clenches his hands hard enough to bend iron when the longing fills him for his mother, when he feels the emptiness inside him well up big enough to swallow his soul whole, and refuses to wake Ed.

He'll become strong enough to stand by himself, to help Ed when Ed can't help himself, even though Al never feels so alone as when the night comes and his brother falls asleep, even though he can't feel the ache of tired muscles or the pain of severed arms and instead goes and goes, even though his soul cries out for rest but still can't.

Those who could support Al need him more than he needs them, so Al shoulders his own pain and hides his feelings behind a face that can't show emotion anyway.

/

Mei was told from a young age that she had no chance. Her mother, proud and perfect, cared for her the best she could until the sickness took her away. And then Mei was alone, in a too-small clan who loved her dearly but whispered behind her back that they knew such a child could never lead them out of poverty. Her people gave her extra portions to support her training, donated the best blankets and best clothes for her, to help her every step of the way, even though their best couldn't even compare to the slums of the bigger clans.

Her only hope was to ally herself with a larger clan, they said. To bow and scrape and beg for their help, and maybe, in generations, the Chang clan might rise again. They would give everything to help her, and many did. Starvation, bandits, hypothermia—so many causes, all with the same result. Mei attended all of their funerals, knew all her people by name, and mourned with a grief that was half personal and half duty, because she knew she'd failed them.

Her people helped her in every way they could, made up for their lack of numbers and resources by their unending heart. Mei tried to serve them in return, but all she could do was train and plan, but none of it would help. She watched, helpless, as the Chang clan withered even further, as their precious few allies broke off contact, as the bigger clans grew larger and trampled Mei's people into the ground, and no one could comfort Mei, not even Xiao Mei.

That is, until the word reaches them of the emperor's desperate wish: immortality.

And suddenly, Mei has a way to make it up to her people, to give back to them for all they've given her.

She doesn't let any of them follow her, not her hovering but skinny bodyguards, not her doting but coughing maid. She and Xiao Mei go off into the desert without any of her family, without any of her people, because Mei can't rely on them anymore, can't get by only because of their kindness supporting her weakness.

So when her throat dries and her hands burn and her feet blister, Mei soldiers on, because her people had given everything for her, and now she'll risk the same to give them anything. No one can comfort her tears at night when she misses her friends, no one can give her advice when her map seems wrong, no one can stand next to her when the night is full of animals she's never seen before.

Mei left behind all those who had supported her, because now it was her turn to support them, and dreams of all the ways she'll fix everything, because at least then, the odds don't seem so stacked against her.

...

 _~fin~_

* * *

 **A/N:** this was originally part of the FMA-100-Theme challenge that i'm totally gonna finish really

but then it got long and I liked it and wanted to post something other than KH, so here!

thanks so much for reading guys, i hope you enjoy. I might eventually write another chapter where they all comfort each other but i'm fine with how it is now.


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